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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368325">Aphasia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurashapiro/pseuds/Laura%20Shapiro'>Laura Shapiro (laurashapiro)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), First Time, Hand Jobs, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Other, Porn with Feelings, Post-Canon, Post-Scene: The Ritz (Good Omens), Sex in the Bookshop (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 00:54:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,151</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22368325</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurashapiro/pseuds/Laura%20Shapiro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale is entombed in words. He cannot utter a syllable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>182</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>727</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hot Omens</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Aphasia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story was inspired by the phenomenal <a href="https://mundycide.tumblr.com/post/187262407611/freedom-to-love-sequel-to-this-art-i-made-a-few"><em>Freedom to Love</em></a>, by <a href="https://mundycide.tumblr.com/">mundycide</a>, which utterly destroys me every time I look at it.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Of course you’ll want to see the shop.”</p>
<p>“Of course.”</p>
<p>The Ritz is an elegant establishment, and even a midday meal is served at a stately pace. It’s well past tea-time before Aziraphale pushes his chair back, flushed with champagne and fig leaf mousse. His ebullient mood has gradually softened to something quieter, more profound. This time yesterday, the world would have ended. The shop had burned down; Crowley had seen it, but Aziraphale still can’t quite get it through his head.</p>
<p>He finds himself at a loss during the short walk to the shop. It’s a bright afternoon, the late summer heat a settled weight. Five courses and two bottles cannot loosen Aziraphale’s tongue now; a grave, uncomfortable elation sits indigestibly in his chest, and Crowley has caught his mood. For the whole journey they do not speak a word.</p>
<p>The exterior of the shop looks the same as ever. Aziraphale fumbles with the key. Inside, he casts his eyes around the room, drags his fingers down a stack of biographies, moves under the oculus and turns about, sees nothing amiss. Slowly and deliberately, he removes his coat and hangs it on the rack. But he does not reach for his cardigan. A perfectly normal choice, on a hot August afternoon. One he has never made with Crowley there.</p>
<p>Crowley glances up, starting to move toward the back room, and sees him in his shirtsleeves. Crowley’s mouth drops open just the tiniest fraction, but Aziraphale has learned his every expression. Crowley is amazed. A flicker at the corner of his mouth suggests amusement -- no, delight, which he is clearly working to repress -- and just as deliberately as Aziraphale has done, he removes his jacket and hangs it on the next peg over. His funny little scarf, too.</p>
<p>Aziraphale feels as if he has launched a paper boat upon a stormy sea. He goes to the cabinet and fetches the bottle of port he’s glad to see Adam has restored. </p>
<p>“Penfold’s Rare Tawny,” Crowley says lightly, moving close to him to read the label. “How long have you been saving that?”</p>
<p>“Not long. I got it when we decided to work for the Dowlings. In honor of our -- second Arrangement.”</p>
<p>Crowley smiles his fond close-mouthed smile, then something relaxes in his face, and Aziraphale sees his teeth. “And when were you planning to drink it?”</p>
<p>“When we -- well. Now, I suppose.”</p>
<p>“Make a deal with a demon to save the world, but better lay in a couple bottles of the good stuff, you never can get a decent port once the sun turns to sackcloth, eh?”</p>
<p>Crowley never really laughs at him. He knows Aziraphale’s limits, his moods; he’s trying to lighten the tone. Always looking after him. </p>
<p>Aziraphale is aware of the proximity of Crowley’s body, still leaning in as Aziraphale puts the bottle down and reaches for the corkscrew. Aziraphale can smell him. <em>I know what you smell like, too.</em> Nothing stands between them now. </p>
<p>Crowley has taken off his sunglasses, as he sometimes does in the shop, especially when they are in their cups. They drank a great many toasts today, to the world, to Adam and his friends, to Agnes Nutter. There is more to celebrate, more to say, if Crowley will allow him. If he will allow himself.</p>
<p>Shaking, he drops a glass. Almost as soon as he hears the smash, the glass is restored, whole, in his hand.</p>
<p>“All right, angel?”</p>
<p>How long since he looked at Crowley’s eyes and thought, <em>like marigolds, like saffron, like firelight.</em> Now, when he sees yellow things, he thinks, <em>like Crowley’s eyes.</em></p>
<p>Aziraphale takes glasses and bottle to the table where they drank to the end times just a few days ago. Crowley sits in his usual chair. The late afternoon sun silhouettes his dark shape. Aziraphale is briefly infuriated -- Aziraphale wants to <em>see</em> him. All these obstacles should be gone now.</p>
<p>His hand still trembling, Aziraphale lifts his glass. “To you.”</p>
<p>“Me?” Such a little thing, humans drink to one another all the time, and Aziraphale first proposed Crowley’s health over two thousand years ago. But Crowley’s tone indicates he is truly baffled, as though he’s never heard of such a ridiculous notion.</p>
<p>Aziraphale takes the performative sip (the port is meltingly delicious, well worth waiting for) and puts his glass down. His chest is tight. Crowley is limned with brightness and Aziraphale awkwardly scoots his chair around, closer to him, searching for clarity, a way to get the light out of his eyes. “You. Crowley, the world wouldn’t exist any more if not for you. You have been positively heroic. You --”</p>
<p>“Shut it,” Crowley growls, gulping at his port. He sounds only half stroppy, though. There’s a smile in there somewhere.</p>
<p>“You don’t have to push it away any more, you know,” Aziraphale says quietly. “The kindness. No one’s listening. No one’s watching.”</p>
<p>Crowley looks up, startled, and the impact of Aziraphale’s words lands in his own stomach. Their eyes meet. And Aziraphale is aflame in that amber gaze. Crowley stares, unmoving. Waiting. As he has always waited for Aziraphale.</p>
<p>“I -- Crowley, now that we --” he swallows. He moves his hand across the table as he hadn’t done at the Ritz, traces his fingers lightly across the back of Crowley’s hand. Clasps Crowley’s cool, dry hand in his hot, sweaty fist. “I’ve wanted to tell you --” The words stop, thick behind his clumsy tongue. Aziraphale is entombed in words. He cannot utter a syllable.</p>
<p>Crowley lifts their joined hands, leans forward, and presses his lips to Aziraphale’s knuckles. “I know,” he murmurs. “I’ve always known.” Then he presses Aziraphale’s palm to his chest, and Aziraphale can feel Crowley’s heart beating as wildly as his own. “And you know too, don’t you.” It isn’t a question.</p>
<p>“For a long time now.” Not as long as he should have done. He wants to ask Crowley to help him. There is a final barrier to be crossed, and Crowley is always the one to lead the way. </p>
<p>But Crowley is waiting for Aziraphale, with his heart in Aziraphale’s hand.</p>
<p>Aziraphale curls his hand in Crowley’s shirt and tugs, reaches for him with both hands now, “Here, come here,” he manages, and then Crowley is in his lap, and Crowley’s arms are twining about his neck, and Crowley is kissing him.</p>
<p>The soft parting of Crowley’s lips against his, so tender, so careful, draws a whimper from Aziraphale’s chest. Wonder surges through him: to be so purely, exquisitely happy -- he thought it impossible. His throat aches and his eyes sting, and suddenly he is turning his face away, sobbing.</p>
<p>Aziraphale clutches Crowley tightly as the tears stream down his face, shaking with passion and grief and what he now perceives to be rage. So much time he wasted. So much time. Crowley’s hands comb through his hair, soothing. Crowley kisses the top of his head, over and over.</p>
<p>He is overheated, sweating, grasping Crowley to his wet face with straining hands. And then abruptly he is aware of Crowley’s shape moving gently under his palms, hard breathing ribs and the winglike movement of shoulder blades and sinuous swerve of spine as long, clever fingers dip into his waistcoat pocket and proffer his own handkerchief with a dramatic flourish.</p>
<p>“Thank you,” Aziraphale murmurs, blowing his nose.</p>
<p>“You know, they have tissues now. So you don’t have to carry your snot around in your pocket any more.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale huffs a laugh, mops his face, and tucks the handkerchief back into his pocket. “Human bodies are rather leaky,” he says.</p>
<p>Crowley’s fingertips are blessedly cool against his face. “They’ve got a few advantages,” Crowley offers in a low tone, and kisses him again. Aziraphale exhales. He feels serene, buoyant, quietly fizzing like champagne.</p>
<p>In the dim well-loved room, surrounded by the most familiar sights and smells, Aziraphale is flooding with the unfamiliar: the weight of Crowley in his lap; the pounding of his heart in his throat, in his fingertips; the sensations of cool, dry lips pressing gently against his mouth, his jaw; tender, slow hands caressing his shoulder, the back of his neck; the taste of Crowley’s skin. And sounds the shop has never heard before. </p>
<p>“Crowley.”</p>
<p>“Aziraphale. Angel.”</p>
<p>“My dear...my dear...”</p>
<p>Names, endearments spoken thousands of times, never like this, incredulous whispers. Prayers. For what I am about to receive, oh, Lord, I am so thankful.</p>
<p>An indrawn breath, a sigh. The soft click of lips parting so they can meet again, the wet, muffled moan of a kiss growing deeper. The susurration of fabric pushed aside, sliding against skin. The tiniest shiver as skin meets air, meets fingers, meets wondering lips. And their voices again, tender and urgent, vocabulary all but lost, so careful.</p>
<p>“May I…?”</p>
<p>“Do you like…?</p>
<p>“Is this…?</p>
<p>“Yes, <em>yes.</em>”</p>
<p>“Oh, God, <em>please.</em>”</p>
<p>“Don’t stop.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale is alive from his scalp to the soles of his feet. His lips are sore from kissing. Crowley is half-naked in his lap, and Aziraphale is still unbelieving. So long, he has wanted this; can it really be possible?</p>
<p>His body is no longer at home to any such reservations. His cock is full and straining. It twitches as Crowley seizes his neck in another biting kiss, and Crowley must feel it against him. Aziraphale freezes, Crowley’s lips and hot breath against him in a strangled moan.</p>
<p>“Do you,” Crowley pulls back to kiss his mouth, looks him in the face. Oh, those fiery eyes in this light. “Do you want…?”</p>
<p>“Everything,” Aziraphale breathes. “Everything you want to give me.”</p>
<p>“Oh, fuck, angel,” Crowley says, rocking against him until the pure pleasure of it forces Aziraphale’s eyes closed. He breathes it in for a moment, then remembers himself. He puts a hand on Crowley’s hip and Crowley stills.</p>
<p>“Do you?” Aziraphale asks.</p>
<p>Crowley plucks Aziraphale’s hand from his hip and places it on the hot, hard length of him straining against his jeans, and bucks into his hand. “All of it. All of you.”</p>
<p>So much, Aziraphale thinks, so much they can do; but they start with this. Start with this, in the shop, where they’ve spent so many laughing, lovely, lonely times together. Home for him, and he hopes for Crowley too, among the books and the wine and the dust and the arguments and the philosophy and the griping and the weight of so many memories, here in this chair, unbuttoning. Unzipping. They take each other in hand.</p>
<p>Aziraphale has only an instant to appreciate the silk of Crowley’s skin under his fingers, sheathing his hardness, before the sensation of Crowley’s hand on his cock overwhelms him.</p>
<p>“Oh. <em>Oh.</em>”</p>
<p>“Haah!”</p>
<p>He fights to keep his eyes open against the slow, tender slide of Crowley’s grip, the gentle press of Crowley’s thumb over the crown of him. Crowley’s eyes are open, his mouth agape, as though trying to drink him in. He blazes with sunlight, in his pleasure more beautiful than ever. Aziraphale cups the back of Crowley’s neck with his free hand, and Crowley reaches out to grasp his shoulder. They hold each other as their breath comes faster.</p>
<p>Aziraphale is overflowing with all he wants to do -- to explore Crowley’s body, to learn what he likes, to lavish him with care, to bring him the release he has waited for so patiently -- and at last free to do all these things, Aziraphale tries in the grip of Crowley’s hand and his own unimaginable bliss to ask Crowley what he wants.</p>
<p>“Are you--?”</p>
<p>Crowley’s eyes narrow for a heartbeat and the edge of a smile plays over his face. “Good. So good, angel.” He takes Aziraphale’s hand off his cock and brings it to his lips, lets out his long tongue and licks the palm of Aziraphale’s hand so that Aziraphale shivers all down his arm and into his heart, and then places Aziraphale’s wet hand back on his cock. His eyes flutter shut, then open again. “Don’t stop.”</p>
<p>It is the most erotic thing Aziraphale has ever experienced, and he thrusts into Crowley’s knowing hand, tightening his hold on Crowley’s nape, thumb moving across the serpent sigil at his cheek.</p>
<p>“I -- I --”</p>
<p>“Aanh, aah...”</p>
<p>“Oh, god, I --”</p>
<p>Aziraphale wants to tell Crowley how he has ached and yearned and suffered and how he is singing with happiness now. But the inexorable pull of Crowley’s tight fist has rendered him incapable of words. The fire builds and builds and Aziraphale is bursting with words and cannot speak.</p>
<p>It is Crowley who speaks for him. Crowley who has never had the vocabulary, Crowley who does not read books. But this is a language Crowley knows, and as always, he comes to Aziraphale’s rescue.</p>
<p>“Want you, angel. Always wanted you. Forever and a day. And you there, wanting me. Hardest thing to bear, harder than this cock in your hand.” Crowley licks his own palm now, returns it to Aziraphale’s aching flesh, moves it faster. “Don’t have to bear it any more. Fuck. We can have each other. Belong to each other. Nothing can tear us apart. Not any more.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale has been watching Crowley’s mouth, but Crowley’s hot hand on him is too glorious, he slams his eyes shut, straining as Crowley pulls the pleasure from him.</p>
<p>“Have it, angel. Have everything. No more no. Only yes.”</p>
<p>A roar in Aziraphale’s ears and joy crashes through him like a storm. He cries out, shouting his ecstasy, thundering with it, deafening, a mad burst of sound exploding from his heart and throat that makes the whole shop tremble. And Crowley goes on making the words for him, the words he would say, “yes, yes, yes!” </p>
<p>Crowley is swelling in his hand, pulsing over his fingers, gripping his shoulder tightly enough to hurt. Aziraphale opens his eyes in time to see Crowley’s head tipped back, mouth open, shuddering with his last thrusts.</p>
<p>Somewhere beyond his pounding heart and panting lungs Aziraphale hears, for the second time today, the smash of breaking glass.</p>
<p>Crowley leans toward him, and Aziraphale meets him halfway. Their foreheads touch. “Think you broke a few windows,” Crowley pants.</p>
<p>“Fuck the windows,” Aziraphale huffs into Crowley’s surprised, laughing mouth, and it is an awkward kiss, joyful with Crowley’s rare mirth. He pulls Crowley against him, heedless of the mess, wrapping his arms around Crowley’s dear bony ribs as Crowley cards his hair, noses under his ear. </p>
<p>"This how it's gonna be now?" Crowley mutters into his neck. "Heedless of the neighbors? Riot in the streets?"</p>
<p>He's made Crowley laugh twice today. The giddy relief isn't only in Aziraphale; it's in the weight of Crowley, boneless against him. Aziraphale squeezes him tightly for a moment, then pulls back to look at him.</p>
<p>Crowley is still smiling widely, gazing into his face with a look that reminds Aziraphale of the wall of Eden. Crowley -- Crawly -- was so young then, so open, so ready to be pleased. The lovely crinkles at the edges of his eyes are lit with a new glow, rose gold. The light has changed.</p>
<p>Up on that wall, out in the clean air of Eden, he had made a friend. Aziraphale thinks that was the first time anyone said a kind word to him. And yet, by the end of that day, Aziraphale had known loss. And had felt what his subordination to Heaven truly meant.</p>
<p>He needs air.</p>
<p>"Come with me," Aziraphale says, taking Crowley by the waist and lifting him off his lap, not without a touch of regret.</p>
<p>Crowley wobbles, recovers, snaps himself tidy. Fishes his glasses from somewhere. "Always," he says in an everyday tone, as though it were a perfectly normal admission. Aziraphale swallows, blinks, realizes he has nothing whatever to hide, and hauls Crowley back in for another kiss. Then he makes himself presentable and takes Crowley's hand, leading him upstairs. Where Crowley has never been.</p>
<p>Crowley is silent as Aziraphale leads him through the flat, past the negligible kitchen, down the hall, past the bedroom and bathroom and through the back door.</p>
<p>"Oh," Crowley finally says, as Aziraphale ushers him up the dim back stairs. They emerge, finally, into a blazing sky.</p>
<p>There are just a few clouds today, beginning to pink up as the sun drops behind the storefronts and townhouses. Yellow fades to magenta, but overhead the wide blue bowl of atmosphere still arcs over them. It's too early for stars.</p>
<p>"Do you remember the first sunset?" Crowley asks.</p>
<p>Aziraphale tries. "Not the first one, no. Bit preoccupied, I suppose." He turns to Crowley, who has taken off his glasses and is squinting against the light. "I remember the first one we saw together, though."</p>
<p>Crowley scrunches up his face even more. “Day we met? Didn’t really see it together, did we?”</p>
<p>When the storm ended, Aziraphale had turned away to shake the rain off his wing, and when he’d turned back, Crowley had gone. Aziraphale had cast his eyes over the desert, unaccountable loneliness panging in his breast, and seen the demon walking north, then eventually turning westward, away from him.</p>
<p>“The light on your face looked just the same as it does now,” Aziraphale says quietly. Crowley takes his hand. Aziraphale returns the pressure of his fingers. A sunset, cherished together, and no one is walking away.</p>
<p>Aziraphale studies Crowley’s profile, sharp against the glow. Crowley belongs outdoors, a creature of the world, among living growing things, aloft in the celestial sphere. Aziraphale has for hundreds of years kept himself tucked away, dark and dusty, in his vault of words. Disappearing into a book has given him a measure of liberty from the cold, bright dominion of Heaven. But there was a time when Aziraphale was at home in the air. </p>
<p>Crowley cranes his head to the east, where the sky is going dark, violet spreading like an inkstain. “Stars are coming out,” he says fondly.</p>
<p>“Would you like to stargaze with me tonight, my dear?” Aziraphale asks, and with what he hopes is an appropriately timed flourish, unfurls his wings. “Would you like to see them, perhaps, from a bit closer?”</p>
<p>Crowley whips his head round at that, mouth dropping open. His gaze warms as his eyes roam all over Aziraphale, dragging slowly over his wings. Aziraphale feels as if he’s blushing from wingtip to wingtip and head to toe. Crowley lets his own wings out then, subtly, yet just as dramatic himself when he wants to be. He gives Aziraphale a slow-blooming smile. “Riot in the streets, like I said. Dunno what’s gotten into you.”</p>
<p>Aziraphale laughs and launches himself over Greek Street, beating hard for a moment until he finds an updraft. “Catch me if you can!” he sings over his shoulder.</p>
<p>Crowley gives a sort of whoop and then Aziraphale hears the beat of his wings. As always, Crowley is right beside him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Gratitude as always to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliet/">juliet</a> for insightful beta and for liking what I write, and to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/equestrianstatue/">equestrianstatue</a> for early encouragement, for always, always getting me, and for appreciating an Aziraphale who doesn’t have the words.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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